


evermore

by tieressian



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Crushes, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Not Beta Read, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Sad Ending, Slightly - Freeform, implied nd gundham and reader, opposite of angst with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29592834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieressian/pseuds/tieressian
Summary: mirroring: to copy the mannerisms and gestures of those you’re attracted to and/or admire(in which two lonely children find solace in one another)
Relationships: Tanaka Gundham/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	evermore

**Author's Note:**

> this was a warm up piece that go way out of hand oop. honestly might delete this bc i kinda hate it?? idk dude
> 
> also, it may seem a bit ooc but that’s because im exploring what child gundham is like. so he’s not going to act exactly like his present self
> 
> cw: bullying, slight ableism

_ Troubled child. _

It’s what your parents call you, lips pursed and brows drawn as you dig worms from the earth and watch them curl between your fingers. A hackneyed wreath of weeds perched on your brow as you bow to every tree you pass. It’s what the specialists call you. Pens scribbling and toes tapping as they watch you reach, reach, reach towards the sky with straining hands. Swaying on your feet as your tongue clicks against the roof of your mouth, neck twitching slightly as you flop onto your back and read the cursive in the clouds. Silver lettering that winds and flows before petering off into illegible scribbles. Glittering stanzas that you gather in your palms and swallow down like a man dying of first. Chirping happily as golden, ambrosia coated words tumble from your anointed lips in a bubbling stream.

Words. Words are better than people, you believe. Because people glare and flinch and scoot away with pitying looks and empty smiles. More teeth than lip, like a predator baring its teeth in warning. Words don’t scold, words don’t ostracize. Words are effulgent, animistic creatures that flutter about with gossamer wings spun of silk and sunlight. Clever things that come to life with the very breath from your lungs. Glass mechanisms that shatter at your feet and prick at your skin, blood oozing from the wounds as you create with your lifeblood itself.

Words don’t call you creepy. Words don’t call you weird.

Words keep you company when no one else will.

For elementary school recess is a battleground of unspoken rules and cliques. Do not sit at the trading card table if you have nothing to offer, don’t hog the swings for more than five minutes, and  _ never  _ talk to someone younger than you. 

It’s taboo, a brand of immaturity amongst the immature. To acquaint oneself with someone younger is the most shameful, reputation-immolating thing you can do. Embarrassing beyond belief that you’re so incapable of friendship that you’d search for it in those below you.

Ironically, being friends with someone  _ older  _ than you is a mark of pride. A medal to pin above your breast with impish triumph. A trump card to pull when those your age grow a bit too big for their britches.

And while social stigmas have never been much to stop you, there’s only so much you can do when the status quo has shunned you from the very moment you were born. Everyone—regardless of age—turning their backs whenever you come skipping by. Legs jaunty and offbeat because why walk when you can send your stomach fluttering? When you can pump your arms and stretch your fingers until they ache?

Besides, it’s not like you need friends, anyways. You have words, both your own and of those who came before you. Stories told centuries past over flickering fires and smoky incense, written down in swooping cursive with sharp inks and thick parchment. Printed out in short, blocky letters on yellowing pages in yellowing books. Shoved in the back of old, ramshackle libraries like baby teeth at the bottom of a memory box.

(Even words can be lonely, sometimes. Words can be forgotten and left alone while their classmates team up to play keidoro).

There are lots of pretty words, too. Even for something as benign as mushrooms. Chanterelle, champignon, truffle; you bounce the syllables around in your head before feeling them with your tongue. The rounded edges smooth against your lips as you squat down and balance on the balls of your feet. Delicately skimming your fingers over the fleshy tops of the fungi circle as you bob your head to the rhythm you mumble under your breath.

And, off balance and distracted as you are, you fall back onto your rump in surprise when you hear a throat clear from behind you. Wide eyed in your staring as you lock gazes with a boy you recognize.

There’s kinship here, that you know. The boy older than you by one year yet still just as alone, preferring the company of the school nurse to his own classmates. You’ve seen him before. Salt and pepper bangs flopped over steel gray eyes, silent and unassuming with a tilt to his chin like the princes you’ve read about. Piercing glares shot over the thick collar of an oversized sweater. Off putting and almost scary in the way he carries himself, anxious and grandiose at the very same time. Too alien to make friends, just like you.

But similarity does not a friendship make.

After all, this is  _ his  _ unofficial spot you’re infringing on. Just skirting on the edge of the forest, the wooden stakes of the fence wedged far enough apart that you can reach into the trees. Can grab at the willowy crab grass and pluck a few leaves from a sapling. It’s like reaching through the wardrobe and tumbling into Narnia, two vastly different worlds for you to revere. It’s no wonder he’s claimed it as his own.

Wordlessly, he motions for you to move. And you do so without complaint. Shifting aside as he takes your spot and looks to you expectantly, though you’ve since returned your attention to the mushrooms. Blissfully unaware that you’re meant to  _ leave.  _ Happily chattering on as he stares you down unblinkingly. 

Seconds pass in subtly tense silence, the boy resigning himself with a slump of his shoulders as he moves to touch the mushrooms as well. Still completely silent as you fill the conversational void with your precious, precious words.

And while you may not know his name, he makes a good companion nonetheless. Stoic expression turning starry eyed as you start whispering of fairy rings in a soft, reverent tone only a child can pull off. Spinning a tale of trickster fae and the foolish townsmen that step into their circle. Who offer up their names without a second thought as they’re coaxed into an eternal, plodding dance.

He doesn’t speak a word the whole time. Except for a whisper of his name and a muttered goodbye when the bell finally rings. Pinkies crossed as he turns his cheek at your beaming grin, cheeks flushed darkly as he funnels into line. An unspoken vow between you to come back tomorrow.

And Tanaka Gundham is better than words, you find. Because words don’t listen to your stories with a soft, enraptured expression. Words don’t teach field mice tricks and have them run across your palm. Words don’t read books you’ve recommended and say that you tell them better. Words don’t glare at your bullies and make vague, daunting threats in the most menacing tone a second grader can manage.

Words aren’t your best friend.

Tanaka Gundham is.

And you don’t mind the teasing so long as you have Tanaka at your side, who understands you like you understand him. How he teeters between pin drop silence and loud boasting like a seesaw in the wind. How he hates to be touched without warning, how he hates the itchy tags on shirts and curses the texture of velvet against his skin. How his neck is the most cold sensitive part of him and yet he always forgets a scarf.

And it’s endearing, how he ducks his head into plush fabric as you wrap a royal purple scarf around his neck. The playground rampant with screams as children push each other into towering snow drifts. Snowflakes dusting his hair so that it’s more white than black, catching on his eyelashes as the ends of the scarf trail at his calves. His mother is a wondrous woman—you called her an angel once, and he heartily agreed—but she can be scatterbrained at times. Having neglected to buy Tanaka a new scarf since the two of you accidentally shredded it at his fourth grade graduation.

So in the end, you took initiative and got him one yourself.

It’s a durable thing—you’d certainly hope so, considering how much allowance you’d saved for it. Black accents embroidered at the ends in a fanciful, regal pattern that you thought was rather fitting. He’ll grow into it, if it lasts that long. And what is egregiously long now will shrink down to something magnificently sinuous with age.

You can tell he likes it, and it makes you immeasurably happy that he does. Grabbing his hand as he sings its praises and dragging him along at your whim. Scaling one of the steepest snow heaps and narrating all the while, spinning a tale of harrowing dangers and blistering winds. The two of you laboriously reach its peak, and you raise your hands and throw your head back with a triumphant shout. The other children watching wide eyed from below like little ants. Drawn in by your mesmerizing tale, of  _ The Supreme Overlord of Ice  _ and his  _ Dark Consort armed with a silver tongue. _ How you’ve claimed these snow capped mountaintops as your own and will fend off any intruders with your dark magicks.

And for dramatic effect, Tanaka does a complicated arm motion and points off to the horizon. A flock of pitch black, screeching crows following his direction as they emerge from the forest with a mighty flap of wings.

You’ve never been more popular than that very moment.

With a roaring cheer of awed excitement, your captivated audience joins the game. Charging up the snowdrift only to be beat back down by haphazardly assembled snowballs on Tanaka’s part. Your flowing narrative interrupted by pants and coughs as you fight off the invaders. A wide grin stretching your cheeks as you turn to catch Tanaka’s eye, his expression strangely warm despite the cold blush tinting his cheeks and ears. Something foreign fluttering in your chest as his head tilts back and he guffaws.

You feel it, then. Something cold and icy shoved between your arm and your side, a pointed icicle someone had fake-impaled you with whilst you were distracted. Eyes widening, stretching out a hand towards Tanaka as his face goes blank, you careen backwards and tumble off the snow drift. The crowd roaring in victory now that you’ve finally been ‘vanquished.’

A mistake, really.

Because when the wind picks up and Tanaka’s scarf fans out in arching tendrils, you face an iota of Tanaka Gundham’s fury. Your words mirrored in his as he promises to raze the earth with hellfire, cackling laughter that both draws in and repulses the crowd as he slips on the role like a glove. And it’s like something clicks into place as he stomps his foot and a huge chunk of snow sloughs off the drift, burying half of the invaders up to their waist.

Too bad that’s when the bell rings.

It’s like nothing had ever happened. Attention slipping through your fingers as the others dust themselves off and leave. Leaving just you and Tanaka on the pockmarked battleground. The boy stumbling clumsily down the pile in direct contrast to the grace he’d held himself with before. He hoists you to your feet with an almost nervous look in his eyes, quickly fading as words shoot rapid fire from your mouth. Gushing over him as he draws up his scarf to hide his fiery blush.

Words are your everything, and Tanaka Gundham is better than words.


End file.
